IP: The "plot" thickens Internet taxation, meaningless polls

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 10:28:00 -0700
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> From: Jim Warren <jwarren () well com>
>
>
> Interesting that AP would carry results of a "net-tax" poll, this morning.
> Yesterday afternoon, I submitted my monthly tech-public-policy column for
> December's MICROTIMES, explicitly exploring this issue.  Some points:
>
> * About a year ago, the Republican-controlled Congress and Democratic Prexy
> enacted a temporary, 3-year prohibition on taxing net-stuff, and set up a
> commission to study the issues and report to Congress about 6 months from
> now.
>
> * Apparently ignoring this -- or planning for its end-point -- less than
> two months ago, senior Democrat Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-SC) submitted a bill
> to impose a 5% national sales tax on out-of-state net-based sales (and also
> on catalog sales).
>
> * Senior Republican Member Dick Armey (R-TX), the House Majority Leader,
> seems to be making a high-provile <sic> pitch that the Internet Tax Freedom
> Act should be made permanent. It's one of only three "agendas" on his
> "Freedom Works" website (via www.house.gov, go to "leadership offices" then
> to "freedom works").
>
> *Armey and 35 co-signatories sent a letter to the commission, dated
> *yesterday*, *bluntly* telling the commission that it should stop studying
> *how* to tax the net and start studying what the problems would be if it
> *were* taxed.
>
> It's interesting to note that the AP "poll" appeared ONE DAY after Armey's
> co-signed letter.  Either the AP did one damned fast poll (with the errors
> typical of haste), or ... <gasp!> could the poll and the letter possibly
> have been orchestrated by collusion between the Beltway press and the House
> Speaker? (SURELY that could NEVER happen! ;-)
>
> --jim, Jim Warren
> Contributing Editor & technology public-policy columnist, MicroTimes Magazine
> Also GovAccess list-owner/editor; 345 Swett Rd, Woodside CA 94062
>
> [Of course, December column covers a lot more than just these tidbits.]
>
>
>
>
> > > From: "Gillmor, Dan" <DGillmor () sjmercury com>
> > > Reply-To: farber () cis upenn edu
> > > To: "'David Farber '" <farber () cis upenn edu>
> > >
> > > Dave, many newspapers around the country ran an AP story this morning that
> > > showed overwhelming opposition to taxation of products and services sold on
> > > the Internet. It's a classic lesson in why polling can be misleading:
> > >
> > > http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg091599.htm
> > >
> > >   QUESTION: Would you like to pay higher taxes?
> > >
> > >   Answer: Uh, is that a trick question?
> > >
> > >   Survey researchers recently posed a query like that to active Internet
> > > users, asking if they favored a national sales tax on online purchases. The
> > > results, released on Monday, were scientifically valid in their narrow
> > > context -- and about as meaningful as a Republican Party analysis of Bill
> > > Clinton's record.